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[Josh Greenman <joshg1973 AT yahoo.com>]

Study: Chimps may be extinct in 50 years

Tuesday, June 8, 2004 Posted: 1359 GMT (2159 HKT) 

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- Humanity's closest relative the 
chimpanzee could
be extinct in around 50 years because it is hunted for meat and threatened by
deforestation and disease, researchers said on Tuesday.

Only 8,000 remain of the most vulnerable chimpanzee subspecies, the Pan 
troglodytes
vellerosus, which is found predominantly in Nigeria, and it could be extinct 
in two
decades, according to a study.

The study was presented at a conference of The Pan African Sanctuaries 
Alliance (PASA) in
Johannesburg. PASA sanctuaries care for orphaned or injured great apes.

"It is believed that the illegal hunting and eating of apes -- known as the 
bushmeat
crisis -- has had the greatest impact on the rate of decline, along with 
deforestation,
human encroachment and disease," PASA said in a statement.

"The situation is much more critical than we thought," said Norm Rosen, an 
anthropologist
at California State University-Fullerton who coordinated the study.

The study used the rate of orphans brought by people to sanctuaries to 
calculate the loss
of chimpanzees in the wild -- and showed a dramatic increase in the number of 
baby chimps
losing their parents.

Rosen's study -- which estimates that 10 chimpanzees in the wild are killed 
for every
orphan that reaches a sanctuary -- predicts that the vellerosus subspecies 
will become
extinct in the next 17-23 years.

The other three chimpanzee subspecies face slightly better odds, but all are 
expected to
disappear in 41-53 years, at current rates of decline.

"The numbers at the sanctuaries don't lie. You don't get the kind of steady 
stream of
orphaned chimpanzees we're seeing without a devastating drop in the wild 
population,"
said Rosen.

Chimpanzees are found in western, central and eastern Africa.

The 19 PASA sanctuaries currently care for approximately 670 chimpanzees, a 
number that
has risen by more than 50 percent in the last three years.

The study is the latest to sound the alarm about the fate of the great apes, 
which
consist of chimps, gorillas, bonobos and the orangutans of Asia.

One recent UN study said less than 10 percent of the forest home of Africa's 
great apes
will be left relatively undisturbed by 2030 if road building, construction of 
mining
camps and other infrastructure developments continue at current levels.